Facebook Changes Your Email Without Your Permission

It’s one of those moves that leaves me scratching my head saying, “What the heck!?!” If you haven’t looked at your Facebook profile lately, you might want to take a minute and check it out. It appears Facebook has decided to switch everyone’s default email address to an “@facebook” account. Problem is, they didn’t even bother telling us of the change, much less asking us for permission to do so.

Not too long ago Facebook rolled out its “Gmail Killer” email service. For most, it was clunky at best and honestly, most people already have a well established email address to begin with. In other words, the service didn’t really catch on. So, much to the surprise of many users, Facebook changed the listed email address on everyone’s profile. They even decided on an email address for you. For instance, if your profile is “http://www.facebook.com/abcdefg”, then your new Facebook email address is “[email protected]” Fortunately, there is an easy way to get your email address back.

Go to your wall or profile and click “About”. On the “About” page there is a section listed with “Contact Information”. See the picture below for an example. Click the “Edit” button to change the default email address displayed.

When you click the “Edit” button, it will take you to a place where you can edit all your contact information. Find the section at the top labeled “Emails”. See image below for an example.

Find the email address that you would like displayed, and click the dropdown arrow on the right, as displayed in the picture above. Click the selection that says “Shown on Timeline”. If you don’t want people to use your “@facebook” address, then select “Hidden from Timeline”. Then save your settings when you are finished.

This is an outrageous ploy on Facebook’s account and is not something that builds trust. This blogger http://blog.gerv.net/2012/06/facebook-email-mitm/ actually said it best when they described this as a “Man in the middle attack”. That is serious stuff folks. Facebook needs to hear about this from you and me! This isn’t safe, it is sneaky, and it makes me wonder about the future of Facebook and whether they can ever be trusted.

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Darrin Jenkins

Darrin is an IT manager for a large electrical contractor in Louisville KY. He is married and has 3 kids. He loves helping people with their technology needs. He runs a blog called Say Geek! View all posts by Darrin Jenkins

Actually they did tell at least some people, with an information bar at the top of the news feed. Also, anyone who already had their email address visible to all would show the facebook address in addition to the default, not instead.